3:10 to Yuma
by Sarabibliomania
Summary: "And this must be your daughter, the beautiful Sarah Wade," he wheezed, each word heavily pronounced with a sharpened edge that rasped like a blade being sharpened. "The one woman in the entire West that no man can touch." "Or lay eyes on either," pa sternly answered. "And unless you want me to cut you down right here I'd stop staring at her."
1. Chapter 1

The sun burned its heated mark down on the back of my neck, weaving its way through the loosened strands of my hair to burn a thin lace like pattern on my nape. Rose shifted beneath me, her hooves uneasily moving across the dusted earth and puffing up ashen like dirt that hovered ominously in the air. A hot breeze ran its touch over my shoulders and down my spine, a twisted strand of blonde hair catching in front of my eyes and blurring my vision. I tucked it back from my face and under the brim of my hat, the roughness scratching against my bare palms. Pa's head barely tilted up, his hat shifting and re-sketching the shadows across his face, paled and darkened over his stubble. His lips parted somewhat, his gaze focused on the hawk, its snow white feathers gathered together to create a downy surface barely dotted with the occasional black feather. The breeze ruffled it and its claws readjusted on the knobbed branch. Pa lowered his face again, his dirtied fingers gripping the pad of paper tightly, his other hand moving in stunted movements over the paper. The branches next to pa shifted and hooves clumped across the dirt, the sun catching over Charlie perched on his horse, his hands loosely clutching the reins. The hawk took off, wings beating the air viciously and pa's head turned, watching it go and the sunlight cutting awkwardly over his back. He shifted his jaw back and forth slightly, his jacket deeply creasing. Charlie's horse edge closer, his own face half buried in shadow and his chin etched with his blonde stubble. I lowered my eyes, the heat of the sun seeming to burn deeper and darker, his gaze clear and with a deeper edge that crawled underneath my skin.  
"Coach is headed for Bisbee, Boss," he said, his voice clipped with accent and his gaze turned away but it's memory hovering. "Girded with irons, Pinks on top, double shotguns, and a Gatling." A smirk of malice wrote itself onto his lips at the prospect. Pa clicked his tongue and his horse walked cautiously down slope, flattening patches of brown grass and chunks of heavy dirt. I clicked my own tongue and Rose tossed her head, neighing somewhat and followed, her alternated steps causing me to slide somewhat on the saddle. I gripped my thighs and adjusted my hold on the reins, the sun burning its mark through my clothes in a heated clutch. The barbed branches of a low tree ran along my legs and Rose's flank and she neighed lowly, shifting her head. I let go of the reins with one hand and dug my fingers behind her head to scratch her affectionately. Pa's shape moved ahead of him, revealing the outfit awkwardly situated. They lowered their gaze as the spotted me, focus directed towards any other various activity they had. Pa rode through them casually, stance tall on his horse with a deep seated confidence that no one dared question. I ran the rein through my fingers as I followed him over to the ridge, the odd shadows of the horses and their riders flanking either side of me. I swallowed the dryness on my tongue as I pulled on the rein firmly and Rose stopped the lines of her jaw tight. Pa glanced over at me, confirming that I was seated beside him before turning back to the outfit. Charlie nodded with unspoken understanding, his gaze shifting over everyone and jerked his hips to get his horse to move forward. Everyone but Pa and I followed; their combined hoof beats crashing against the dying earth and exploding it in low hanging dust and clipped grass. The taste and scent of both hovered in the air like a dirtied mist. I shifted, my legs beginning to ache with the pressure of holding of them tight.  
"Stay close to me," Pa said quietly, firmness to his tone that bore no room for question or negotiation. I glanced over at him, my eyes half in shadow as he stared off into the distance to where the puffs of dust gave away the presence of the outfit, their low sounding hoof-beats a gentle hum in the background. Familiar irritation grinded through my spine like the sun's heat and I gritted my teeth to keep back words that I knew he wouldn't appreciate.  
"I know pa," I responded and turned back to follow his gaze to where the billows of dust faded. A gunshot echoed harshly through the air, splitting the near quiet with the heat of it. Pa's head snapped to the side to where the sound originated, his crystallized blue eyes carving its gaze over the chipped cliff sides. I watched him, a miniscule breeze brushing back the hairs on his neck as he waited, listening …. He turned his head back, the cut of his hat shading over his eyes.  
"Stay close," He repeated, the same gravelly edge to his voice that barely betrayed anything more than basic affection.  
His horses hoof steps broke evenly on the cracked earth, his posture swaying somewhat with the movements, his hands evenly spaced over the reins and holding them loosely. He drew on them firmly, altering the fold of his jacket to reveal his gun holstered by his side, the golden cross on the handle glinting of the suns reflection. Six black horses broke through the low hanging trees lower down, the coach dragging behind it with the shape of its drivers barely visible. Pa glanced back at Campos on the higher rocks, his pose low over the earth with his riffle carefully aimed in front of him. He froze on the edge, pulling his rifle closer to him so that it aimed higher, the longer strands of his hair heavy over his face. Gunshots echoed and I turned back to see the Outfit charging after the Coach, dust exploding over the hedges and earth. I licked my lips and moved farther up on the saddle, the edges of it rough against my thighs. Pa barely glanced over at me before redirecting his gaze to the scene unfolding, the gunfire now echoing into one another and violently crashing against the background of my ears. The horses and Coach collided into a blurring herd of shapes and sounds, ashen dust billowing upwards and coating everything until only sharp edges stood out. A louder gunshot crashed through the air and my shoulders tensed at the sound, Campos still poised over his riffle with his fixed posture. Sharp, short shots broke louder, puffs of dust echoing off the dust where he crouched. Rose tensed and shifted backwards, her head jerked somewhat with nerves.  
"Easy, girl," I murmured, tangling my fingers through her mane and grazing her head lightly. "Easy, there." She ducked her head, ears turning to catch closer to my fingers and I scratched the grooves behind them with comfort. I looked over at pa, his face trained on the ambush and the sun catching over the side of his face and turning his stubble to roughened gold. His stance was calm, solid confidence that betrayed no fear, no tremor or doubt. Complicated affection for him beat against my insides and I turned away, quiet resentment fighting their way in through my heart beats quickened by the echoed gunshots.

He clicked his tongue and I turned as he jerked his horses head around the flank of Rose. His horse backtracked and I snapped my head around, my loosened braid hitting lightly against my back, the frayed strands of it hovering around my head in a gold haze.  
"Follow me, love," pa directed and his horses hoof steps thudded down the slopped hill and amongst the hardened earth and down to a low slope where a couple dozen cows stood in awkward formation, lowing throughout the deadened grass.  
"Ya," I ordered quietly and Rose picked up her ears and clopped after him, hooves gripping the slope and broken grass and rocks. Pa swept his hand into the side of his jacket and pulled out his gun, directing it towards the sky and firing. The cows mooed and all started to herd together, over the edge, their flanks blending in a dizzying formation. Pa fired again, powder dusting up from the barrel, barely standing above the ever moving group of cattle, their hooves beating loudly.  
"Ya," I yelled, a straggler brushing back my legs and thundering after the others, its head bowed and mooing lowly in panic. "Ya." Pa tucked his gun back into its holster and reached out between us and grasped onto my reins, his fingers over my own and tightening them to bring me to a stop.  
"Good girl," he congratulated, squeezing my fingers with quiet affection before letting go and drawing them back to his own reins. "Good girl." I turned away, licking my dusted lips and tightening my fingers into the leather of the reins. He brought his horse forward again, Rose dutifully following as the Coach turned from the stampede of cattle, the harness breaking and the horses galloping off with panic, their manes tangled and hoofs blurred darkly. The Coach crashed into the rock and flipped, the two surviving drivers falling to the sides and collapsing into the dirt. The outfit broke closer to the destruction, the remaining wheels on the coach spinning and dust musty in the air. Charlie swung his leg over his horse and landed solidly on the earth, unbuttoning the first button of his jacket and strutting easily through the barbed bushes. A dark shape burst through them hurriedly and Charlie pulled out his gun and shot him, the shape falling and him adjusting it back into his holster with barely a pause in his step between. He stopped for a moment next to a barbed bush and shot into the ground next to it, a shape barely forming between the crunched branches. He turned again and walked deeper into the thicket, stepping with a pronounced air and a saunter to his walk.  
"Names Charlie Prince," he said his voice rough with arrogance and the heat. "I expect you've heard of me." An elderly man slowly rose from the branches, his grey hair dirtied and his face leathery with wrinkles.  
"…Named Charlie Princess," he was saying, his voice thick with conceit and edge roughly with pain. "That you, missy?" Charlie pulled out his gun and shot him in the stomach, the man's shoulders collapsing in agony.  
"I hate Pinkertons," Charlie said simply, tucking his gun back into his holster, the cut of the sunlight illuminating the golden hairs on his chin and neck.  
"Byron McElroy," pa greeted, tugging lightly on his reins and folding his hands respectfully over one another. "When did your hair grow all grey, Byron?" Byron coughed dryly, back curved on itself and tense with pain.  
"Go to hell, Ben Wade," he grunted, glancing partially up, his clear blue eyes betraying a strength in them that contrasted against the age of his face and stance. Pa smiled slightly and his horse stepped lightly around them and to the fallen Coach, its wheel still lazily spinning.  
"Well, would you look at all this," he observed lazily, taking in the finer details of the now ruined Coach. "Y'all spare no expense this time, Byron. I gotta say, though, it's probably cheaper just to let me rob the damn thing." A chuckle stretched out on his last words and he smiled slightly, pure enjoyment from his own humor. Byron stared up at him, his hand clutched to his stomach, tendrils of blood leaking through his fingers. Pa gripped his stirrup and pushed himself off, landing firmly on the ground and his boots crunching on the grass. I grasped my own stirrup and propelled my leg over, blood rushing back under my skin and becoming pins and needles that prickled when I set my feet onto the ground. My feet connected strongly and I held onto the saddle of Rose for a moment, my legs stiff and too broken in. I ran my fingers down her flank and walked around, each step loosening up legs and un-sticking the fabric of my pants from my legs hotly.  
"If you're going to kill me, just as soon get to it," Byron gritted out harshly, his head bowed and his fingers clutching his jacket with the deepened red blood staining his fingers.  
"I ain't gonna kill you," pa said solemnly. "Not like this." Charlie glanced over at him; his fingers hovered over the bullets he was reloading. His gaze redirected to me and I lowered my eyes, the hairs on the back of my neck standing up.  
"Won't change a thing, lettin' me live," Byron gasped gruffly, each word pronounced and roughened as his chest moved with harsh pants, the blood still leaking over his twisted fingers. "I'll come for you." He looked up on his last words, his eyes clear with defiance and hatred. He coughed coarsely, the sound of the blood in his throat thick and coagulated.  
"I'd be disappointed if you didn't," pa gravely responded, his brow knotted and eyes broken with an almost concern and sympathy. Byron stared back with his defiance, his harsh pants barely stirring the twisted strands of hair on his beard. His eyes barely shifted and settled on me.  
"And this must be your daughter, the beautiful Sarah Wade," he wheezed, each word heavily pronounced with a sharpened edge that rasped like a blade being sharpened. "The one woman in the entire West that no man can touch."  
"Or lay eyes on either," pa sternly answered, all sympathy presumed or not gone from his voice and now hardened. "And unless you want me to cut you down right here I'd stop staring at her." Byron continued to stare with insolence, the feel of his eyes burning through me with discomfort but I stared back, my heart humming loudly in my chest and my tongue going dry from the heat. He lowered his eyes, his shoulders giving in as his fingers tightened on his stomach and he sighed sharply.  
"She's lit!" Someone yelled, breaking through the heated silence. "She's lit!" Pa glanced over before moving away from the Coach, his arm barely reaching out and pressing against my elbow. I followed him as he knelt onto the dirt and I joined his side, the grit of the earth digging into the cloth of my pants and imprinting through to my skin. An explosion ripped through the wood of the Coach, dust and broken shards crashing out of each end and thickening in the air. Pa blinked simply, glancing over at it with an almost disinterest. Tommy rushed over to the now opened end, disappearing into the thicket of dust. I stood as pa did, walking over after him as he whistled, the dust coating the inside of my throat and against the bare skin of my neck dotted with sweat. A shot echoed inside the Coach where Tommy disappeared, pa tucking his thumbs into his belt and standing proud as one of the men walked in front of him. His head bowed and eyes downcast as he walked by to assist Tommy, now standing by the destroyed door, a rusted looking metal case in front of him. He looked up at pa with a grin before shooting at the lock, the metal of it easily breaking and he knelt to untangle it. Pa pulled at his cuffs before setting his hands on his hips as they all knelt to the case and stuffing their satchels. He glanced over at me with a small, proud smile.  
"You'll be eating well tonight, love," he declared with a hint of warmth before turning back. I swallowed a bitterness on my tongue from thirst and the heat, a tender twisting in my stomach at the prospect. I knew better by now not to ask until offered though. The men around Tommy separated and a man rushed out of the overturned Coach and grabbed onto Tommy's shoulder and pulled him back, a gun in his hand.  
"I'll ask you to put down the money," he said roughly, shaking Tommy as he forced him to a stand. "You step back. You men step back! All of you men step back, right now or this man dies." Pa quietly gestured with his fingers for everyone to lower their weapons, his eyes trained perfectly on Tommy and the man with the gun.  
"Not a smart move friend," Tommy grinned, sweat from the heat dotted along his face and neck. Pa stared at the two of them, his eyes narrowing slightly and his fingers crawling closer to his gun. A twist pulled in my chest, a sense in the back of my mind alerting to me what his next thought was before he reacted on it. Tommy's face paled somewhat, his eyes widening with fear and a realization to what was going to happen next.  
"Shit," he quietly swore. Pa whipped out his gun and there was an explosion of powder and sound as blood splattered Tommy's neck, followed by another blast as blood sputtered from the man's forehead. I flinched as they both collapsed into the dirt, my heart racing against my ribs and twisting nauseatingly in my stomach. Pa turned to the outfit, their eyes all wide and frozen, uneasily shifting on their horses as they dared not move or speak. Pa turned from them and walked over, Tommy still making minuscule movements in warped agony in the dirt.  
"Well Tommy …," he said strutting over with careful footsteps and reloading his gun with care. "…It seems that there was a Pinkerton … inside that coach that wasn't quite dead yet. Now I know Charlie told you, because … we done got but a few rules in this outfit." He dropped the shells by Tommy's head, the blood smeared across his throat and lips, his eyes wearily shifting and clouding over with pain. "And this is what happens when you put us all at risk." Tommy choked and pa flipped the gun between his fingers and slipped it back into his holster. He turned back to everyone else, his stance tall and threatening with no word necessary to give off warning that his actions were not to be questioned. I walked past him, the lining of his jacket catching against my own and his gaze turning to follow. The dirt shifted to accommodate my footsteps and I knelt by Tommy's side, the light scent of metallic blood coating my nostrils and coating my tongue sickly. His eyes were open and glazed over, his blood stained throat still and silent. I reached over and gently placed my fingers on my eyelids and dragged my fingertips down so that they closed his eyelashes soft against my skin. Rocks shifted loudly and echoed after and I looked up, three men on horses barely hidden by the dying trees scattered alongside the hill. I stood as pa whistled for his horse, jogging over somewhat to greet her. I followed over to Rose, throwing her head somewhat, uneasily stepping and placed my foot into her stirrup and swung over. My leg seized painfully and I fisted my fingers through the reins and clicked my teeth. She galloped after Pa, billows of dust kicked up by her feet and grass crunching. One of the men on the hill moved closer to the edge, the other two behind him and smaller in size. I gripped my thighs on the saddle as Rose climbed the slope, her hooves catching into the crumbled earth.  
"Morning," Pa greeted politely, his voice low with no indication behind it as to his true intentions. The man in front shifted uneasily on his horse, the wear of his clothing old and worn, with a dusted appearance to them that gave away an indication that he was poor.  
"Those are my cattle," he said simply, his fingers fixed behind him presumably on a gun and the set of his face suggesting a forced confidence. "I want 'em back." Charlie chuckled in disbelief at his naiveté, glancing over at Pa to make sure that he was still recognizable as who he was.  
"Careful, rancher, that's Ben Wade, you're talking to," Charlie warned politely, the always present edge of malice entwined over his words. I shifted my gaze from the rancher and onto the man behind him and my heart slowed to a pained and broken stop. He was beautiful. Deep, clear blue eyes standing out of his pale, lightly freckled face and flecks of black hair falling over his forehead in disheveled disarray. Everything froze inside me, everything broken and everything whole. Everything falling and yet standing perfectly still. I swallowed hard, my heartbeat drawn out in an echoed sound and feel that touched every inch of my body. He stared back at me, his lips perfectly parted and his eyes so impossibly blue and beautiful. Everything was gone, everything frozen and insignificant and it was only me and him, my heartbeat and his eyes …  
"Campos," Charlie said and everything snapped back into sharp focus, every detail now over pronounced and unbroken. The boy broke away his gaze to the rancher and kicked his leg over his horse and settled his feet onto the ground next to the rancher who already stood. Rose shifted and I tightened my fingers on the reins, the feel of them trembling with a shiver that seemed to crawl underneath every inch of my skin and back again.  
"You'll find them on the road to Bisbee," Pa said, tucking his fingers into the side of his belt near his holster. Campos urged his horse forward, his hand outstretched and he took the joined reins from the three horses, the leather of them collecting in his palm.  
"Boys," Pa winked, his hand tucked again over his holster and turning his horse. Panic ran itself along my insides like a knife and I gripped the reins tightly, the leather and stitching getting under my fingernails and I shifted my hips to encourage Rose around and forward. She dutifully followed after Pa's horse's tail, her head lowered and her ears flicking back her hair. I gritted my fingernails into the leather, the pressure of the twisted stitches imprinting on my skin. Don't turn back, don't turn back, don't turn … I turned my head back, my braid unsettling against my shoulder and stared back at him. He stood in the dirt, his hat over his face but his crystallized blue eyes clearly visible staring back at me. A broken yearning clawed its way through me with heartbreaking force but I turned away, clutching the reins tighter and urged Rose on.


	2. Chapter 2

Her hoof beats broke into the soil and kicked it up, dying grass and low bushes breaking and shattering under her heavy gallop. I gripped the saddle tighter with my thighs and pulled on the reins somewhat to slow her as Charlie and Pa did the same. She stepped into a stop and I adjusted my grip, pained intricate red lines over my palm and around my wrist from where I held too tightly. The sparsely populated town stood in front of us, the basic construction of it dusted over and giving the appearance of a place with age. Pa glanced over at me before encouraging his horse forward and I followed, her hoof beats now trampling on now loosened dust that spun around her in a bare mist. No one seemed to mind or bother at the sight of us, their gazes directed into their mundane tasks with no thought otherwise. A young woman swept on a porch, her long brown skirt catching around her and Pa watched her with an intent stare, fixated and captured.  
Charlie glanced behind him with caution, his hands perfectly balanced on his hips before grabbing a jacket off the back of a chair and delicately swinging it around his shoulders, the owner half slumped in the chair none the wiser. I licked my fingers and ran them along my brow, wiping away the sweat and dirt gathered there and tucking my loosened hair back beneath my hat. I pulled at the cuffs of my jacket to better cover my hands and adjusted my belt to hide the gun that pa insisted I have strapped to my waist, the feel of it pained as it shifted from it's almost permanent station at my hip.  
"Just follow my lead," Charlie advised, clearing his throat and pulling his borrowed jacket around him, the fit too loose and unsettling around his frame. I didn't say anything, only pulled my hat lower around my eyes so that it shaded everything in pale gray. A man in deep blue clothes stood at the entrance, his moustache neatly trimmed and every detail of him standing out so significantly against the grit and dirt around him. He barely glanced at us as Charlie walked to the entrance, his arms loosely hanging at his sides. Inside two men sat, one with his feet casually folded on top of the desk, a bottle between them with its glass dirtied and cloudy. I downcast my eyes, pulling at the sleeves of my jacket and holding them close around my folded fingers.  
"Can I help you?" The man with his legs on the desk asked, his words contradicted with the nonchalance of his voice and boredom of his posture.  
"I think maybe … a coach headed for here got itself held up in the canyon about 10 miles back," he said, a simplicity to his words almost rid of the malice and arrogance that otherwise always accompanied them.  
"God damn it," the man from the door in frustration remarked, marching in with his dime store shoes professionally shifting over the boards.  
"…By Mr. Ben Wade himself," Charlie finished, adding on the extra detail for finesse.  
"How did you know it was Wade?" The man from the desk demanded, his legs now settled onto the floorboards and concern etched into the lines and deep set wrinkles of his face.  
"It's been him the past 21 times, Marshal," the blue suited man pointed out with exasperation, his fingers dutifully working on loading his gun.  
"I saw a Mexican sharpshooter and an Apache," Charlie continued, the tiny explanation behind his words to back up his claim.  
"God damn it, Jesus Christ," The man by the desk said, righting himself to his feet and moving over to presumably where his gun was hanging.  
"And I've been told …," Charlie began, shifting his stance so the jacket hung more loosely around him.  
"Did you see the Hand of God?" One of the man asked, loading his rifle and barely glancing over at Charlie.  
"What's that?" I asked, feigning ignorance when I could in the back of my mind feel the memory of pa letting me hold it in my hands, run my fingers over the raised gold cross and hear him explain how it worked.  
"His pistol," the man explained, barely taking in the fact that I had been the one to ask.  
"Why the hell didn't you do something?" The man in the blue suit asked with irritation, pulling at the edges of his jacket. Charlie looked over at him in feigned disbelief at the question.  
"They had a lot of weapons, mister," he said simply and slowly, drawing at the explanation so that he would understand. "And they were shootin' bullets." The man in the blue suit stared back at him with barely disguised contempt.  
"Besides …," Charlie continued a smirk present in his voice despite the fact that it was void from his lips. "I had the missus to think of." I felt him glance down at me and a heat rolled through my entire body until every part of me uncomfortably burned with it.  
"Let's go, we're wasting time," one of the man said, tired with the conversation and headed out the door, rifle ready and loaded in his hands. The man in the blue suit continued to glare at Charlie, his explanation winning no favors from him and followed, the cut of the sun moving over him as he stepped outside. I turned and went after, Charlie close behind as he walked uneasily, his step a poke of fun at the men so easily swayed in the direction he pointed.  
"Where you from, anyway?" The man who had stood by the desk asked, walking around his horse and trailing his fingers over its flank. Charlie looked over, the movement stunted and slow, the shadows breaking in through his dirtied stubble and lining it bronze.  
"Tom Conrad bought a thousand head in Mexico. Hired us to bring them in," he explained simply, the shaded light etching into the sides of his face and making it appear gaunt.  
"And the Missus?" The same man asked, nodding down towards me, remembering that I still stood there. Charlie himself glanced down, the expression on his face unreadable as I kept my gaze directed down towards the disturbed dust, multiple foot and hoof prints marring it's surface.  
"Something's gotta keep me warm at night," he responded, the malice and arrogance he lived and breathed cracking and peeling through my skin with discomfort and a deep rooted hatred that I didn't fully understand.  
"Let's go. Come on, boys," one of them said and hoof beats echoed in the dust and air with their encouragements and I raised my eyes to see their flanks fading into the dying grass. Charlie chuckled somewhat and pulled himself off the post and sauntered over to the chair where he borrowed the jacket, unbuttoning it carefully and swinging it off his arm. I stepped down onto the dirt next to the boardwalk, the shift in texture under my shoes puffing up the dust and walked over to where Pa was stepping. The careful decoration and fine details of his jacket stood out and yet blended in with the air and scenery around him, his eyes looking over to see me approach.  
"You did good," he half congratulated, eyes shifting and fixating on the various members of the outfit moving from their hiding spots.  
"I didn't do nothing," I replied, slipping my fingers loose from the cuff of my jacket, rough red lines across them from where I gripped the fabric too tightly.  
"That's why you did good," He replied, stepping up onto the new boardwalk and his shoes resounding on the boards. I swallowed a bitterness on my tongue not caused by the thirst and the heat and stepped up onto the boards myself, the sound of my steps blending into my ears with an irritation. Pa pushed open the saloon doors, his hands briefly lingering on the decorated wood before letting them drop. I stepped behind the swing of them and into the cooled shade of the bar. Sickly, yellow wallpaper plastered the walls with the occasional bare lamp or detailed frame decorating it with the presumption of elegance. A dusted stove stood proud in the corner, a yellowing curtain hanging just behind that. The woman from earlier sweeping walked between the disorganized tables and chairs, glasses clinking in the box she held and her eyes downcast. Pa pulled off his hat and laid it carefully on the bar before sweeping his fingers through his hair.  
"Ma'am? Some whiskey for my friends," he politely asked, leaning against the edge of the bar and his eyes following her every move with a darkened lust. She stared back with care before setting down the box and pulling out the glasses inside and lining them up along the bar. She turned and grabbed a whiskey bottle off the wall and started to pour, her eyes trained on her actions as Pa's eyes were trained on her movements.  
"And a water for my daughter," he added on, barely glancing over at me to acknowledge that I was still there. I leaned my elbows against the bar and pulled off my hat, sweat tangled through my hair and making it stand around my head in a softened halo. She made no indication of hearing but moved behind to the curtained back and pulled out a jug and metal cup. I swallowed the lump in my throat and dug my fingers into the stitches of my hat as she turned to face me and slid the cup over, the sound of its metal grating against the wood.  
"Don't drink it to fast or you'll be sick," Pa warned, his eyes once again glued into every miniscule movement that the woman made. I bit my tongue and tasted sickly metallic and raised the cup to my lips and took a sip. The water ran clear and cool down my throat, ridding the bitterness and raw sensation on my tongue and clearing through the film that seemed to curdle through my head. I pulled it gently away from my lips, small droplets beading on my cracked lips.  
"Thank you," I said quietly, the metal rim still hovering on my tongue.  
"You're welcome," she replied just as quietly, her eyes still lowered as she poured Pa a shot.  
"Here's to the four we lost in battle," Charlie stated, no more than a hint of sincerity in his voice. Everyone grabbed their shot and raised it half in the air, their cracked and dirtied hands closed around the almost clean glasses half full. "And here's to the boss, who …had to say goodbye to Tommy Darden today. And that's too bad." He finished with an almost smile on his lips, his eyes still solemn with presumed sadness and solemnity.  
"He that keepeth his mouth, keepeth his life," Pa began, righting himself and staring down the outfit with a pious note in his voice betrayed by every other detail about him. "He that opens his lips too wide shall bring on his own destruction."  
"Proverbs 13:3," I said quietly, every word Pa spoke imprinted into my mind and on my tongue so that I could repeat them in perfect unison as him.  
"Good girl," Pa acknowledged, glancing back at me before back to the outfit. "Tommy was weak. Tommy was stupid. Tommy is dead." He spoke his word harshly, with a threat to each one and a taunt that anyone question him.  
"I'd drink to that," Charlie said simply and downed his shot and set it back onto the bar with a clink. I turned to my own cup and took another sip, the cool bite of it diminished somewhat.  
"Sutherland. Jorgenson. Campos. Jackson. Kinter," Charlie listed off, footsteps sounding on the floor as he each man went forward to collect his due. Pa turned back to the bar, again taking in the young woman with darkened eyes. I finished the water and set the cup back onto the bar and wiped my mouth with the back of my sleeve, tasting the dust crushed into the fabric.  
"Marshal's only half stupid," Charlie pointed out, returning to lean against the bar, the swinging doors closing as the outfit stepped back out into the harshened sun. "He's gonna be back soon." Pa didn't say anything, his attention gone, cut and focused on the elegantly loose strands of hair around the woman's neck.  
"They're going across the border," he continued. "I won't be far. I'll wait for you." He paused, his words hanging frozen in the air with no acknowledgment to claim them.  
"All right, Charlie," Pa finally said, irritation edged in his voice at the disruption. Charlie nodded, recognizing this and pushed himself away from the bar and out the door, the doors swinging on their hinges that squeaked with rust and age. Pa grunted somewhat and fully stood, reaching into the front of his vest and pulling out a thick wad of dollar bills.  
"Why don't you go across to the general store and pick up something to eat," Pa said, his head bowed as he counted out the bills, wrinkled between his fingers and held out several to me. I reached out for them and folded them in half, the paper collapsing over my forefinger.  
"Nothing too sweet," he pointed out and I looked up at him, his face solemn and for the moment his eyes clear of lust and replaced with a look that was clean of any particular thought or emotion but an edge of affection that he always only showed the barest brunt of.  
"Yes, Pa," I said, biting back the resentment that forever hovered on my tongue. I glanced over at the woman, her eyes on the stained glasses in her hands and her hair curled delicately over her neck. The next few steps that were going to take place seemed to move like ghosts through the room, brushing against my mind with a sickening realization. I looked back at Pa who silently nodded and I grabbed my hat and placed it onto my head and pushed it down so that it fit more comfortably. The strands of my hair flattened around it, the occasional strand tangled over my ears and I walked to the patch of sunlight visible through the door. I pushed on it and it creaked and swung closed as I stepped down the steps and the brilliant sunlight blinded me, the dust kicked up and turned to diamonds in the light.  
Rose munched on the broken shards of carrot from my palm, her lips wetly moving across my skin and causing the hairs to stand up on my arm. I ran my fingers along the side of her face, the softness under my fingernails and over the grooves on my palm. Her lips closed over my now empty palm, searching for any remaining pieces and I dropped it, wiping the dampness of it on my pants. I leaned my forehead against hers and pressed my lips between her eyes, resting there as her head nuzzled still at my empty palm. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply, the scent of her heavy in my nostrils and swimming through my memory. A breathe of hot air rustled through my hair, draping it over my face and along my neck with a shiver. Thick strands of black hair over crystallized blue eyes fell into place in my memory, the lines sharp and intense against a contrast over everything else too dull and faded. I tightened my fingers into the harness, a harsh sensation in my chest that ripped through my body, a yearning and a want that overcame every other basic instinct and desire that I knew. Footsteps shifted in the dirt, the clink of metal in rhythm of the steps and I opened my eyes, my vision blurred by the hair of Rose's forehead. I pulled it away; fingers still twisted in the harness and looked over to see Charlie standing against a post, his gaze directed down at me with tiny movements in his eyes that followed every one of mine. I swallowed and untangled my fingers, instead running them through her mane and behind her ears, holding onto the sensation of something concrete when all I could feel was his eyes.  
"I got you a carrot," he said and I looked over, a thick carrot with peeling skin in his palm outstretched towards me.  
"Already got her one," I said simply, her nose nuzzled into my jacket and her lips catching at the fabric. I ran my fingers down the lines of her face, waiting for him to leave. He chuckled somewhat, the sound clipped and unnatural.  
"One more won't kill her," he said, his head tilted and a breeze curling through his hair and reweaving them into a new disheveled fashion. I looked over at the carrot still outstretched and reached for it, my fingers grazing over the rough leather of his gloves. The roughness of the carrot left tiny orange shavings in my palm and I held it out to Rose, my fingers carefully spread out as Pa taught me. She clamped her lips around it, crunching noisily and adding a distraction to the thoughts in my mind, the ashen ones that blew through almost unnoticed and the sharpen ones that cut clear through impossible to be denied.  
"She's a good horse," Charlie said, suddenly next to me and the scent and feel of him surrounding me in a blur, his hand stroking down Rose's flank.  
"Ya she is," I responded, her tongue gathering the last few flakes of carrot and wetly coating my hand. I wiped it on my jacket, dirtying it and pressed a kiss onto her nose. The feel was damp and I walked around to the post and stepped up onto it, the roughened wood chipping into my palms. I turned carefully and settled on top of it, wiping the wetness off my face and gripping the other side of the post and bracing my feet on it. Charlie continued to pat Rose before he turned and leaned against the post next to me, running his fingers along one another and staring down at them like there was some fascination to the movement. I lifted my head to stare down the end of the road, the streaks of green catching through the dead earth and blending almost into the dyed blue sky.  
"You're growing into quite a fine woman," he said, looking up from his hands and dropping them to his sides. I dug my fingers into the crumbled wood, my heart beat beginning to pick up and race in my chest, imprinting it's touch against my ribs.  
"Thank you," I answered, no other words coming to mind, nothing to say or do to escape from the situation. Nowhere to go but running into the bar where Pa was presumably still with the woman, to interrupt him and either face his anger or a worse consequence that broke through me with the ghost of a memory to justify my fear in it.  
"There's no need to thank me, it's the truth," he said with a slight laugh and shifted closer against the post, the feel of his leg pressing against my thigh. It imprinted itself with care and I stared down at the dirt, dead tufts of grass flattened and broken across it.  
"You're becoming a very beautiful woman, Sarah," he said and he reached over and dusted his finger down the side of my face, along my jaw and done my neck. Panic thrust itself into my throat, a sickness spawned from emotions I couldn't quite name breaking under my skin. His shadow shifted as he leaned over, the individual strands of weaved bronze and gold visible over his lips …  
"Weren't you going to the border to lead off the Marshal?" I asked slivers of wood under my fingernails and breaking into splinters, the taste of his breath almost on my lips. He froze in sudden realization of the thought, his eyes downcast and tracing over the line of my jaw and eyes. I slid my hand off the barked post and to my gun, sketching out the basic details of it. His eyes lowered further to it, my finger set on the trigger with a tremble sparked from an uncertain origin.


	3. Chapter 3

"Right," he responded and straightened, his shadow changing its shape on the dirt. "I should go do that." He smoothed the edges of his jacket and tipped his hat with his thumb before moving past me, dust raised from his steps. A gasp forced itself back into my lungs jaggedly and my hand dropped from my gun, my fingers still trembling.

I ran my knuckle down the side of Rose's face, the almost disguised tremble in it all too visible to my own eyes. I flattened out my palm and stroked her by the ear and she turned it into my touch, her head shifting and a low grumble escaping her lips. I smiled faintly and leaned my forehead against her ear, the heat from it stirring my hair. The shadow of Charlie changing, the shape of his lips and the feel of them so close repeated and modified in my mind like it couldn't make up its mind of what exactly happened. I licked over my cracked lips, the heat drying them again and coating my tongue in a film that I almost always knew the taste of. The sound of spit tore through my mind with a sickly crawl over my skin and I raised my head, a tall man with dirtied clothes passing and adjusting his hat back on his head. He stepped past and I lowered my head, peeking out past the shade of my hat to see his footsteps shift the dirt. He pulled a gun out of his holster, the gleam of his gone and rusted. Fear twisted itself into my stomach as his direction led him to the wall of the bar, carefully stepping over the boards. I glanced around the side of Rose, another man visible crouching beside the wall of the bar, a gun perfectly held in his hands. The pit deepened and bled inside me and I choked on the feel of it. I dug my thumb across my bare palm, thoughts rushing through my mind with backlash that hurt in my chest. I dropped my hand to my gun, fingers again trembling at the thought of using it. A ghosted future ran through my mind in disjointed fashion, shards of scenarios and ideas piecing together in no order or pattern. Something pressed against my lower back and everything tensed and froze, my breath catching as it registered what it was.  
"Miss. Sarah Wade," a voice gruffly said with smugness, the barrel of his gun pressed hard against my back and imprinting its memory firmly. "We've been looking for your Pa." I tried to swallow but it caught and the muscle of my throat tensed, silently making me choke.  
"He's not here," I attempted, the words barely making sense on my tongue or in the air where they hovered with no threat.  
"Please," He said and grabbed for the side of my jacket, his hand closing around my fingers still hovered on my gun. He jerked it out of the holster and my fingers hung on the bare air, suddenly naked and vulnerable in a sense that scared me beyond anything else. "If you're here, your Pa has to be close by." I locked my gaze at the general store, every muscle inside me begging for me to glance at the bar. "Let's go say hi, shall we?" He grabbed onto my elbow and dragged me around the post, his fingers harsh and hard on my skin. I stumbled slightly on my boots, rocks gritting into my toes and he shoved me harder, bruises tendering under my jacket. The boards of the steps to the bar shoved awkwardly against my feet and I braced my legs to keep from falling. He stepped ahead of me, hand still on my arm and shoved open the doors, thrusting me into the room.  
The reaction from the brilliant sun darkened every edge with a dusted air coating everything in between. Pa stood by the bar, several men around him with guns pointed at his chest with sturdy aim. They turned as we walked in and Pa's face fell as he saw me, the careful details of his face paling in the darkened light.  
"And what do we have here?" The tall man that I had seen outside asked, his gun still pressed close to Pa but his gaze on the obvious distraction we caused.  
"Miss. Sarah Wade," the man gripping me said proudly, his fingers dug into my elbow beginning to burn. "Ben Wade's daughter." He spoke each word slowly, arrogance dripping from every one of his words with a sickly sweetness.  
"Well that is a bonus," the tall man smirked and walked over, his gun lowered and his teeth visible from between his lips, yellowed and near pointed with his leer.  
"Remove your hands from my daughter," Pa said through his teeth, his eyes narrowed dangerously and dark thoughts passing behind them. The tall man grinned back at him and turned over to me and took a step closer and laid a hand on my shoulder, gripping it tightly. My body tensed and I dug my fingernails into my palm to distract myself, the feel burning through my jacket and shirt. The tall man grinned wider and dropped his hand, his grip still imprinted into my skin and through the bone.  
"You're going to pay for that," Pa said dangerously, his face set in hatred that I knew already pumped hot through his blood.  
"What do we do with her?" The man in the blue suit asked, the twist of his moustache now darkened with sweat and a thin layer of dust fading over him.  
"That's up to the courts to decide," The man behind me insisted, his prize catch not to go to waste and his efforts gone unnoticed.  
"Fine," The man in the blue suit sighed, exasperated for things to move along. "Cuff her too." A man with a dusted face and jacket walked over, a rusted pair of handcuffs in his palms, blended in against the dark red of his skin. I looked up at Pa, my heartbeat picking up beneath my ribs and he barely nodded, a façade of defeat in him that hid the mechanics of an escape behind his eyes already falling into place. I held out my hands and the man clamped the handcuffs through them and tightened them, the rust rubbing against my wrists and wearing them faded red.  
"Crawley, go get the wagon," The man who had stood behind the desk said, his riffle trained on Pa with accuracy, the dusted light darkening the lines of his face deeper. "Make sure every weapon we got is shoot-ready." A tinge of pride interrupted its way through my heartbeat that almost touched at my lips at the sense of precaution dedicated to keep Pa under control.  
"I'll meet you out front of the office," the man continued. "We gotta get him out of here."  
"Sure thing," the man said, tightening the cuffs on Pa and turned away, stepping quickly over the boards and out the doorway.  
"I think we should shoot him right now," the tall man suggested, stepping closer to Pa with Pa's gun carelessly held in his hands. The pride dissolved inside me and turned cold with fear, the men around Pa with their guns becoming clear and real. "Put a bullet right in his noggin." He shifted his gaze to Pa, his head titled with evident threat and the coldness spread into my throat in thin shards.  
"Do that and everybody in this shit-piss little town will be dead by morning," a faintly familiar gruff voice remarked and I looked over to see Byron from this morning standing tall and fearless with his gloved hands turning over with a menacing shift. I darted my gaze over to Pa again, his eyes on me and a look of light calm in them, an assurance that it would be alright. I barely nodded and swallowed the coldness, the weight of the handcuffs heavy on my wrists. The blue suited man walked over to pa, his shoes louder and more sophisticated sounding on the makeshift floor.  
"22 robberies," he said a confidence in his voice and stance that was betrayed by a light edge of fear that no doubt ran deeper and darker beneath his pressed jacket and shined shoes. "Over $400 000 in losses." Pa shrugged like it was a small thing and the coldness and fear lessened, my breath coming in somewhat easier and less strained. "More in delays. The Southern Pacific will have Ben Wade convicted in a federal court. Hanged in public. An example made." Pa smiled at his naiveté as the man shook something small and brass near his own ear. "And we will pay to make it happen." He turned back to the men in the room, the rancher from this morning half standing beside a wall and his gaze directing up at the mention of pay.  
"Y'all notice he didn't mention any of the lives I've taken," Pa said with a thin smile lined over his face.  
"I need three more men," A man that I couldn't see spoke, his voice rough.  
"You can have Tucker," A man from up on the steps said, the careful details of his suit pressed and decorated.  
"Good," said Pa slowly, details forming behind his eyes that ghosted in my imagination into a future scenario that he could already grip.  
"I'm coming," Byron said firmly, a roughness to his voice that reminded me of a blade being sharpened. "You only need one."  
"You're wounded Mr. McElroy," the man on the steps pointed out with little care either way.  
"I rode in here," Byron insisted stiffly. "Sure as hell can ride out." He swayed somewhat, steadying himself with a hardened determination.  
"He goes, Potter's coming," the man from the desk said simply, riffle still held stiff and unwavering.  
"What?" The man behind Byron asked in confusion, gold rimmed glasses set cautiously on his nose.  
"Doc can't shoot shit," Tucker chuckled roughly, the sound almost like a wheeze and shifted in his stance.  
"I was best shot in my regiment," the rancher said, speaking up and stepping from by the wall so the shadow etched itself off his face. A sudden pin of hope pressed into my chest and crackled through me with an intensity that I could almost hear. Tiny details, a freckle, a dip in the lips etched itself rapidly in my head and broke my insides with a collision of hope and yearning that threatened to cripple me.  
"…North or the South?" The man in the blue suit asked, his voice tiredly intrigued.  
"North," the rancher said shortly.  
"We're Southern in name, but Chicago owned," The man in the blue suit said, his words clear in my mind yet shaded somehow so that they didn't make sense to me. "Fine. $200."  
"Let's go," the man on the stairs said in exasperation and stepped down, his eyes following the minuscule movements that Pa made with suspicion and a sort of hatred that didn't piece into anything that made sense. Pa started to step slowly, the man who had been behind the desk and another who granted no characteristics walking carefully behind him with rifles aimed dangerous at Pa's shoulders. The man behind me turned me roughly and forced me into a walk, the clink of the handcuffs heavy and sore on my wrists, biting roughly into my skin there. Pa walked into line next to me and the doors swung open, the radiant sun cut around the porch and dusting everything golden. Tucker walked in front of us, his hands carefully tucked onto his hips and holding the fold of his jacket back. Pa lowered his hands to his handcuffs and rubbed his wrists with a sort of grace and nonchalance that I had grown used to in him and stepped down the stairs. The sunlight blinded me, sharpening every edge into gold and dusting everything with a sheen of it. The people who before had ignored us when we rode in began to look up in shock and confusion, frozen in their actions and darkened significantly by my eyes adjustment to the light. Shouts broke through the air to one another, any real words or meaning behind them lost in the sound of my heartbeat in my ears and the feel of the handcuffs around my wrists.  
"You alright, girl?" Pa quietly asked, speaking from the corner of his lips, his gaze straight and stiff like no ordinary fear could touch or break him.  
"No," I admitted and swallowed the edge of panic that was biting up my throat and shattering the taste of bitterness and blood. A wagon came around the corner of the store in front of us, mists of dust gathering around it and softening the edges of it and the horses. Rose. My heart caught and I turned, my vision cut by the shapes of men behind us with rifles still aimed at Pa's back.  
"Keep moving," the desk man said gruffly, the front sight of his rifle brushed against my shoulder with poorly disguised threat. I turned back around, a bite of unease in my throat. Quickened hoof beats echoed like threatening thunder and I turned as dust kicked itself up into the air with omen, the shifting shape of it draping around Charlie and his galloping horse like a ghostly fog.  
"This town is going to burn!" He yelled, malice and threat sharp in his voice and he pulled his gun from his holster and fired, the blast of it hitting the man holding Pa. The front of his jacket exploded in powder and shredded fabric and he fell back onto the earth with a short yell of pain that cut off with a fade. He shot again, another man falling and screams shattered through the air amongst the blasts.  
"Let's get him Mark!" Someone yelled and an odd sense of panic skewered through my stomach, the men separating and taking aim, their rifles loud in noise and power as the shape of Charlie and his horses paled on the edges as he grew smaller on the horizon. A rough hand grabbed onto my arm and shoved me, my feet almost giving beneath me and causing me to fall into the dust.  
"Get in the coach," the man said between his teeth, my shins catching the sharpened edge of the step digging into my skin. I climbed up the steps and into the coach, the basic details of it worn and faded. I sat down on the seat, the scratch of it pressed against and through my clothes and barely cushioning the feel of the hardened wood underneath. Pa sat across from me, his arms draped over his knees and the chain of his handcuffs sagging tiredly between. His gaze drew itself out the window where Charlie stood in the distance, rough details of him standing proud against the fading blue sky. Pa smirked somewhat and looked back at the door, a chain weaved through it and held in the hands of Tucker who locked it shut, sweat dotted across his face. Pa leaned back against the seat with a small smile that drew every line of it with smugness and deep rooted confidence.


	4. Chapter 4

The feel of the coach moved quickly underneath my feet, miniscule bumps under the wheels adjusting the ride of it and bruised delicately up from me feet and through my entire body. The golden wheat blurred by the window, the touch of blue sky bleeding into it so that on the horizon they became one. I swallowed, a shift under the wheels making it catch in my throat and twist a sickness in my stomach that feed from fear and an anticipation that ran like a hot wire under my skin.  
"You alright?" Pa asked and I looked over, his back against the wall of the coach and his hands casually folded in front of him. No detail of fear or concern wrote itself into the way he held himself or etched its way into the set of his eyes.  
"No," I said simply and leaned back, the roughness of the wall prickling over my back and shivering down my spine.  
"Don't worry. It'll be alright," he said, a small smile of pure conviction tracing his lips. "They have no evidence against you. They can't hold you."  
"And what about you?" I asked, the coldness that hadn't fully dissolved from my throat again breaking its way through in an intensity that made breathing a challenge. His smile of almost warmth twisted into a smirk.  
"You let me worry about me," he said, a glint of something that only he knew and I could guess at visible in his eyes and along the lines of his face.  
"You never worry. About anything," I pointed out, the edge of the cuff blending its rust into my wrist and shading it murky red. He chuckled lowly, the sound a quiet rumble in his throat.  
"I worry about you," he pointed out, the shade of warmth there but out of place amongst the smug details.  
"That's different," I said with a hint of stubbornness.  
"Not really," he said, shaking his head and making the shadows from the window re-cut themselves over his face. I shifted my gaze away from him and leaned my head back, a bump under the wheels passing through the wood and bruising the back of my head against it. I gritted my teeth, a dark frustration poisoning its way through my limbs and into my chest. A crunch sounded beneath the wheels and my weight seemed to drop, the seat colliding harshly beneath me. Pa raised his head in half hearted curiosity and I slid closer to the window, the seat beneath me falling on a more cautious slant. The sun cut across the golden wood of the wheel, the weight of it fallen off the makeshift bridge and sunk into the powdered earth.  
"Hello there!" The driver called and I adjusted myself to peer up at him, the spark of the sun blinding me and I pulled back, everything significantly darkened. "Evans! Can you give me a hand with this?" I turned again to look out the window, three men with any distinctive markings to them faded out walking over, a makeshift home behind them with puffs of smoke painting their way out of the chimney and into the sky. I shifted away from the dip of the slanted seat and to the other side, weaving my fingers through the thin bars. Charlie was barely visible in the distance, the light of the sun gleaming over him and erasing all distinct details. A face appeared in the corner of the window and a catch of surprise caught in my throat as the driver stepped to the door and started to unlock the chain holding it closed. Pa shifted closer to it and wiped at his upper lip as the driver glanced up nervously, his fingers delicately casting off the chain. He unlocked it and pulled it open with an un-nerving creak, a gun in his hands that he pointed at Pa, the coldness in my throat taking note of the fact.  
"Let's go," the driver said, pulling the door open further and a patch of dirt becoming visible through it. I glanced over at Pa who held out his hands with an indication for me to go first.  
"Ladies first," he said politely, a sense of humor to his smile. I stood, my head tilted and the floor slanted underneath my feet and stepped to the door. The sun bit at my eyesight and I squinted, the brilliance of it making them water and stepped down and onto the dirt, my legs almost shaking from the memory of harsher movement.  
"Good driving, Marshall," Pa said, ducking out after me, a grin on his face as he stepped next to me, pure enjoyment written into his every detail. A man stood behind Pa and draped a jacket over his shoulders, the fit of it too loose and flowing around him. He pulled off his hat, the silver details of it glittering in the sun and set another one on his head, flattening the strands of hair.  
"Remind me not to play poker in this town," Pa said with a surprisingly solemnity, glancing over at me with a look to remind him later. I stared back, no words coming to mind to respond to him and the thin shade of irritation sharpening in my stomach. I turned away from his gaze and down at the Rancher, his eyes looking up at the two of us and his hands firmly held on a board secured underneath the fallen wheel. Tucker went to stand beside him, his hands gripping the top of the wheel.  
"All right Marshal," he said, staring up at the driver who again reclaimed his seat on top of the coach. "Give us a count."  
"One, two, three," he counted, the snap of his voice and the reins following as Tucker and the Rancher gripped the wheel and shifted it into movement and back onto the bridge. It started to roll again onto the path and Pa grabbed onto my arm and pulled me back and out of the way, the unexpected pull stumbling up my feet. The man who took Pa's hat set it onto his head and stepped into the coach, pulling the door shut behind him and settled onto the seat, various cuts of his shape visible through the narrow window.  
"Come on," Tucker said and grabbed onto Pa's elbow and shoved him into a walk. I followed after, the grass kicking up around my ankles in a mist that faded my feet from my view. I looked up as we approached the house, a woman standing on the porch with her arms crossed over her chest and weariness that bleed out of every detail of her. A pinch twisted in my stomach, the tiny and almost perfect details of her darkening a memory that only swirled in and around my fingers like a ghost I couldn't catch. The rancher jogged up behind her and stood with his rife pointed out, his breath coming in somewhat hard and the sweat from the day dampening his throat and forehead.  
"Ma'am," Pa politely said, tipping the brim of his hat and his outstretched arm pulling at the coat around his shoulders. She didn't move, only stood stiff and determinedly defiant, the shade of bare emotion unmoving in her eyes. I attempted a small smile on my lips at her, a small warmth and reassurance that I tugged at me with an inability to commit fully and a dark sadness that sparked too much of it. The edges of her softened somewhat, the core of her sunk into her own defiance and strength that did not let the weakness bleed through. The floorboards creaked with a reminder of their age under my feet as Pa was led to the open doorway, Byron half cut from view by the frame.  
"Byron," Pa said cheerfully, taking note of his shape in the doorway. "What an unpleasant surprise."  
The walls were a softened gray, the occasional bare detail adding a new dimension of presumed home to it, a simply elegant lamp or touch of delicate curtain to the window. A flickered fire burned hotly in the fireplace, a laced cover draped over top and the design a delicate stitch of red. A sense of loss for something I never truly had ran its rusted blade throughout my body. I ran my finger over the bone at my wrist, the feel of the rust bleeding into it and dug my fingernail into the skin there, a hotly thin desperation beginning to quicken in my chest and swell through my veins. Pa looked around in half smug amusement, taking in the simple details I did but with none of the sad affection.  
"You have a lovely home, ma'am," he said to the woman as she stepped inside, her arms still crossed over her chest and creasing the gray fabric.  
"Thank you," she said stiffly, stepping against the wall and pressing her back against it, her finger nervously smoothing over the crease in her sleeve. A footstep resonated on the floor and I turned, the Boy standing half obscured by a doorway frame. Everything inside me shattered, falling and piercing through my insides with an unbearable sensation that almost brought me to my knees. I swallowed the sharpness inside me, the edges of everything around me fading and the lines of him darkened and pierced with terrifying intensity. His lips parted somewhat, his eyes fixated on me, in mine, a look in them like he was staring into the sun and was blinded but couldn't look away …  
"William," the Rancher said, the sound of his voice breaking through whatever held me paralyzed. The boy … William barely shifted his eyes to his father, the movement flickering the light over his face and sketching out the lines of it deeper. "Can you go and get some more wood?" Visible irritation drew its strength into William's shoulders and he glanced back over at me, a change in his eyes that seemed to draw itself through his entire body.  
"Please," the Rancher carried on, a slight pleading in his voice that held out in the air. William sighed and walked across the floor to the open doorway, every fiber inside me taking note of every one of his movements. The set of his shoulders, the hold of his arms at his sides, the shift of his steps against the floorboards … His gaze broke free of the strands of hair littered over his forehead, a catch of the light making them shimmer and I dug my fingernail into my wrist, the pinch of pain reminding me of the sense of reality I was faced with. He passed through the open doorway, his shadow falling along behind and I turned, the blonde sweep of my hair blurring the edges of my vision. The sun passed around him, sketching it across the earth, imprinting it upon its memory and carving it through mine. He turned to look over his shoulder, his eyes catching mine and everything inside me broke further, shattered and twisted until there was nothing but a longing that bled everything inside me raw.  
"Should take an hour before the outfit to take the bait," the Rancher said, his arm leaned against the doorway and the shadows dusted over him. "Should be enough time for dinner."  
"Oh good, what are we having?" Pa asked, his back pressed against the wall, a grin on his face of pure enjoyment and his arms across his chest like chains didn't bind them.  
"Is there somewhere where I could wash up?" I asked, my voice stilted and low in the almost silence of the room. The Rancher and his wife glanced over at me, the energy and attention of the room focused and framed around Pa with me almost a bare afterthought in the shadows.  
"Out back," his wife said and jerked her head somewhat to an open doorway that glimpsed at the dead and drying grass beyond it.  
"Thank you," I said politely and Tucker righted himself from where he leaned, gun carefully clutched between his fingers. I walked around the odd chair scattered around the table, glancing over at Pa with his head tilted thoughtfully and trying to construct an idea of what I was thinking. A chilled breeze shivered through me as I stepped to the door, a basin of half filled water resting on a small table and the breeze rippling across its surface. I walked over carefully and dipped my hands into the water, the bite of its chill forming goose bumps up my arms. I gathered the water between my palms and lifted them, tendrils of it leaking through and pit pattering back into the bowl. I cupped it to my face, the feel stealing my breath and brought my hands away, water dripping down my face and along my neck to fade into my shirt. I rubbed at the hollow of my neck, the fingers bleeding dirt and sweat that had gathered there and wiped them on my pants, dampening a stain.  
"Here," the wife said and I looked up at her in the doorway, a torn cloth in her hands and held out to me. I reached across the small distance and took it from her, the wear of it soft against my fingers.  
"Thank you," I said quietly and turned back to the basin, dipping it into the water. It sank under the weight and I drew it out, wringing it and the water soaking down my hands and sleeve with a bitter cold. I scrubbed the cloth into my skin, the feel of it almost rough and unnatural against my neck and face. I could feel my skin becoming pink under my ministrations, a delicate rawness to it from not being so clean in so long. I let the cloth fall back into the water and wrung it out again, my fingers growing numb from the coldness of it.  
"Your hair is very pretty," she said and I looked over as she shifted with almost discomfort, her arms still protectively crossed over her chest.  
"Thank you," I responded, the words stunted on my tongue as it tried to gain an appropriate feel of them. She nodded, thoughts darting through her mind and glimpses of them catching through her eyes. I ran the cloth on the nape of my neck, the hairs on it standing on end and dampening under the water droplets that ran down my spine with shivered accuracy.  
"How often do you brush it?" She wondered a mild strain in her voice as she struggled with the words and the knowledge that she was having a conversation with me.  
"I … I don't," I admitted quietly, embarrassment curling and burning up the back of my neck. She nodded slowly, letting the knowledge shift its way through her mind and crumble its way through whatever opinion she had fashioned for me.  
"I … I have a brush in my room," she stuttered, gesturing behind her into some region of the house that I couldn't see. "If you want, I could …" She trailed off but the meaning behind what words she spoke splintered its way through me with a sudden hurt for something I never had, never knew I wanted. I slowly nodded and swallowed, a lump in my throat that choked at my breath and she turned from the doorway, her skirts flowing around her in a rustle. I draped the cloth over the basin and followed her as she disappeared through a doorway, her skirts shifting like a whisper over the floorboards. I walked after her; the half closed door creaking as I lightly pushed it and received a more complete view of the room. A bed rested against the wall with a hand stitched quilt carefully ducked over it and a small dresser stood next to it with a niche of home and comfort to it that prickled at the lump in my throat. She turned from the dresser and uncomfortably held out a brush, the handle of it ornate and the bristles standing out from it with a rough looking touch.  
"You can sit on the bed," she pointed out, and gestured to the quilt with a tremble in her fingers that seemed so out of place in the strength that she held in her shoulders. I walked over and sat carefully on the bed, the mattress sagging under my weight and the quilt creasing with it. She sat next to me, a groove fitting itself into the fabric with her shape and she carefully rested her fingers against my hair and started to unwind my braid. Her fingers caught in the tangles and lightly pulled, the feel of them straining against my head and making me bite my lip to hold back a noise of pain. She let my hair fall along my shoulders, the feel of it heavy and tight like the memory of it being bound was still there.  
"You have beautiful hair," she said quietly, the bristles digging through the strands and drawing downward, tugging and breaking through the knots. I bit my lip harder, a faint taste of metal breaking onto my tongue.  
"My Pa says I have hair like my Ma," I answered, the feel of her name on my lips almost as bitter as the taste of blood.  
"And where is your mother?" She wondered, smoothly her fingers down my hair, the bristles following and digging after.  
"Heaven," I said simply, a hardness in my voice that dug into my chest with an ache that twisted itself deeper. "I made her sick; she died a few days after I was born." Her fingers hovered over my head lightly, a sudden tenderness in them that made the ache hurt darker and deeper.  
"I'm sorry," she said quietly, the bristles running down my neck and untangling from the ends.  
"Sometimes … when I dream … I can imagine that I can still hear her voice. Singing to me," I continued, the words rolling off my tongue like I had for years been holding them back and only now had the chance to say them, their feel everywhere in the room around me. She didn't say anything, her hands gently peeling my hair away from my face and running the brush through them, the touch softening them and making them fall like a blur around my face. I closed my eyes, the feel of her fingers on my hair stirring the ache more painfully and clouding my senses with a twist of memory and dreams that never quiet built themselves fully in my mind.  
"William," she said suddenly and my eyes flew up, William standing against the doorway with his fingers lingering on the wood. A heaviness broke in my chest and stole my breath and I twisted my fingers into the quilt, the colors weaving and colliding together into a dizzying blend. "Why don't you get washed up for dinner?" He didn't move, any movement of his frozen, locked in place with only the dozens of shades in his eyes that spun me deeper and drowned me.  
"William?" She asked, her voice somewhat louder and clearer and he shifted his gaze up to her before turning and the shadows from the fire dancing over his face and unraveling down his back. I dropped my gaze to my hands, untwisting them from the fabric and pink lines and patterns imprinted into the skin. She swept all my hair to the side and over my shoulder, binding the end so that it feel to a twisted point.  
"There," she said and I reached my fingers up and entangled them in the strands, the feel of them unnaturally soft and my touch falling too quickly through them.  
"Thank you," I said quietly, knotting my fingers into my hair and holding them there, Williams gaze still broken and swimming through my mind, a look in his eyes like he had lost something precious and it had finally been found.


	5. Chapter 5

The warmth and light of the room danced itself across with shadows that sketched out the edges of it, the fire crackling lowly and hotly over the logs. I pulled my sleeve farther over my hand, the chain of the handcuff catching under the fabric and embedding its shape through it. The Rancher sat back in his seat with his arms folded across his chest, the light darkening his face and the lines of it to provoke a weariness in him. Pa sat at the other end, the darkened light from the window framing him darkly. He looked up as I walked in, a smile tracing out his lips with half humor that only he understood and half warmth that touched somewhere deep inside him.  
"Well don't you look lovely," he greeted, his voice finding a perfect blend between the two contrasts, his chin rested on his folded hands politely. I walked across to where he sat and carefully sat next to him, the chair too far pulled out and rested on the edge of it, my wrists balanced on the table and the chain clattering quietly. A small boy stepped into the room, his hair catching the light of the fire and turning it gold and set a plate of food in front of his father.  
"Thanks, son," the Rancher politely said, turning to him to exchange the politeness as his son stepped back out. William walked into the room and I sat up somewhat straighter, the movement pulling at the nearly unbearable hurt in my chest that poisoned its way through my stomach. He strode over to my end of the table and slid the plate of food in front of me, the sound grating against the wood.  
"Thank you," I said and glanced up at him, his gaze again locked in mine and his lips parted like there were a million things he wanted to say but not enough words in the world to speak them. He barely nodded and stepped back to his seat, his eyes never leaving mine. The woman walked in, a bowl of bread in her hands that she set onto the table. My mouth watered, my stomach twisted with hunger that seemed to overcome every meaning of the word. The Rancher stared at Pa with an changing expression, the woman sitting down next to me and pulling her chair in carefully, her gaze barely drifting over to Pa and written to fear and mistrust. Pa drew his fork off the table and dug into his food, his shoulders dropped over the plate and barely making the distance between it and his mouth as he hungrily ate. Basic instinct prodded at me to do the same but I dug my fingers around the fork so the metal edges dug into my palm to resist the urge.  
"We always wait to say grace," the small boy from the end of the table said, his voice surprisingly loud and strong with no tremble of fear or doubt as he stared down the table at Pa.  
"We don't presume to teach other people manners," the woman politely said, her tilted face dancing with the flickered flames.  
"Aren't we supposed to say grace for murderers too?" he questioned, his eyebrows knotted together with confusion.  
"Grace is for everyone, dear," the woman said, a hint of force to her smile as Pa grinned into his dinner, his fork clinking painfully loud.  
"Then why don't we say it?" The boy asked, his eyes wide and uncertain, a rim of pale pink surrounding them with the hint of sickness.  
"Mark," the Rancher politely said, laying his hand on his son's shoulder and a small smile of fatherly affection, which bit at me uncomfortably.  
"I'd like to hear it," Byron said, his hands delicately cleaning his riffle and his eyes shifted over to Pa with pure threat and hatred, the heat of the sun flickering over his face and dancing through the lines of it. Pa barely glanced back over at him, his fork lightly bouncing in his hands and a small smile still on his face. The Rancher glanced over at his wife with a soft nod and clasped his hands in front of him as she bowed her head, the soft curls of hair glittering on her neck from the fire. I glanced over at Pa who grinned over at me, turning a potato on his fork and no indication that he meant to show manners. I turned back and discreetly clasped my hands together, the chain shifting and fought a hotly burning anger towards Pa that twisted in my stomach.  
"God our Father, Lord, and Savior, thank You for Your love and favor," she began, her face nearly golden in the light and Pa noisily eating from the potato, bits of it and the skin crumbling back onto the plate and staining onto his lips. "Please bless this drink and food, we pray. Bless all who shares with us today." She gestured slightly to Pa and me on her last words, straightening and forcing a smile to her lips. "Amen."  
"Amen," the Rancher said, his hands clasped in front of his face and his eyes dangerously staring at Pa.  
"Amen," Pa said with a grin of pure humor and enjoyment on his face, his lips still noisily chewing. I picked up my own fork and dug it into the corn and lifted it to my lips, forced restraint in my actions as I took a bite, the sweet juiciness of it bursting on my tongue. I chewed quietly, forcing my actions into a sense of propriety that my instincts struggled to resist.  
"If my Pa wants to he can shoot you dead," Mark said from the end of the table, an arrogance and pride in his tone, staring down Pa with a continued bravery to his voice and look that contradicted his small stature and the knowledge of who Pa was and what he could do. "He could shoot a jackrabbit at 50 yards." Pa smirked with amusement and dug back into his food, the threat giving no cause of unease.  
"Shooting an animal's a lot different from shooting a man, son," the Rancher explained, affection and pride detailing the smile on his lips and gently lay his hand on Mark's shoulder.  
"No it isn't," Pa said thickly, shoveling food into his mouth and keeping his eyes lowered to his plate, the edges of his face crinkled with the his continued grin. "Not in my opinion." I looked away from him and reached for my glass of milk, the chain dragging over the tale and sipped deeply, quenching the thirst that had dried out my throat and tongue.  
"We could ask Byron here," Pa suggested with continued amusement "Now, Byron, he's killed dozens of people: men, women, children, miners, Apache." The woman looked away, a look in her eyes of effect from his words and delicately reached for her glass.  
"Not a soul taken didn't deserve what it got," Byron said firmly, his fingers wiping down the mechanics of his rifle and his gaze locked on Pa.  
"Every way of man is right in his own eyes, Byron," Pa said, turned back to his plate suddenly solemn and his fork turning the food on it over with disinterest. "The Lord ponders the heart."  
"Proverbs 21," I said quietly in response to his words, the memory of him reading them to me ghostly in my mind and between my fingers.  
"Good girl," Pa murmured in pride, smiling over at me with a kindness that almost reached his eyes. I turned back to my plate, digging my fork through my potato, a small pinch of warmth towards him flickering deep in my chest.  
"Now boy I know my daughter's beautiful but I'm going to have to ask you to stop staring at her," Pa said in forced politeness and I raised my eyes, my heartbeat intensifying in my chest and saw Pa staring at William, a hint of near hatred darkening in his eyes. The table fell quiet, a thickening silence that seemed to choke me and William flickered his gaze away from me, lowering it to the table with shadows carving up the lines of his face. I lowered my eyes, a heat burning up my spine and an anger that seemed to paralyze me, my fingers locked around the metal of my fork that I couldn't pry open. Pa turned back to his own plate, satisfied, and started to carve at his meat, turning his fork sideways and digging it into the thickness that wouldn't give with his ill performed attempts. With a small note of defeat he lifted it whole and started to chew away at its sides, tearing it to shreds with his teeth. I stroked my thumb along the edge of my fork, every part of me tense with an anger that seemed to lock me down under its hold.  
"Dan," the woman said quietly, addressing the Rancher who laid down his cutlery and stood from the table, walking around Mark and over to where Pa sat.  
"You eat more when you're nervous, Mr. Butterfield?" Pa asked the man in the blue suit with cruel curiosity, Mr. Butterfield slowing the movement of his lips with a sudden awareness of them.  
"Oh, why, thank you, Dan," Pa said with a false sense of politeness and leaned back from his plate to allow the Rancher to drag it over to him, the glass grinding over the surface. "That would be pleasant and kind of you. Much appreciated. You can cut that up for me." The Rancher started to cut up the meat, the sound of the knife on glass loud and grating in the almost silent room. "Oh, can you cut the fat of there? I don't particularly like the fat at all." He gestured at the meat with his fork, the Rancher's movements frozen and his eyes lifted to take in Pa, barely disguised hatred clouding over his eyes and visibly tensing his body. "I just … and the … and the gristle." He picked at his teeth, sucking at the ends of his fingers. "I don't like the gristle." The Rancher resumed cutting at the meat, his actions tight and a renewed sharpness to them. Pa stared up at him, his eyes flickered back and forth with great thought to them like he was piecing together an idea of what made the Rancher tick and thus how to take him apart. "You mind if I ask you how you got that hitch in your step, Dan?"  
"Don't tell him nothing, Mr. Evans," Byron said stiffly from beside the fire. Rancher stared back at Pa with the same look Pa gave him, the line paling his face and illuminating a scar that seemed to curl around his eye.  
"Where you stationed?" Pa attempted, his fork spinning awkwardly between his fingers.  
"Second Company Sharpshooters out of Lynnfield, Massachusetts," Rancher quoted, pulling his knife away from the now roughly cut meat and passing the plate back to Pa. He stepped away from him and walked back around to his seat, a thud of wood on wood now palpable in the air.  
"My father was defending the U.S. capitol in the district of Columbia," Mark spoke out, continued pride in his voice, his fork forgotten in his hand and standing up from his plate.  
"Is that so?" Pa asked with faked interest. "Well, Dan, tell me the story of how you lost your leg. Did it get shot off, cut off? The Indians steal it?" He glanced around the table with his eyebrows raised in forged interest and mystic, a humored smile again tugging at the corners of his lips. Rancher stared back, his eyes hard and the shadows of the fire etching out the lines of his face and sharpening them dangerously. A sudden gunshot cut through the silence and tore at it, another one followed on the echo of the first and leaving the air rent in the sound. Rancher stood from the table as did William, the clatter of chairs and movement muffled from the deafness that the shot caused, Mr. Butterfield standing and pointing his pistol at Pa, a tremble to his grip and a bead of sweat dotted across his forehead. Pa stared up at him in mild incredulity, his fork still turned between his fingers and the ashen color of the metal dimly catching the light. The men gathered from the room in a confusion of movement, their footsteps loud in the adjoining room and my heart rate increased itself in tensed beats, pressing against my ribs and smothering my breath inside my chest. I looked over at Pa, his hands folded and swinging the fork between them with an impossible calm, a small smile on his lips like it was all a game that he drew great enjoyment from. He turned to look over at me, the light played over his forehead and creased into the lines of his jaw and buried in the thickened hair of his beard.  
"How's your dinner, love?" He asked pleasantly, a small smile of amusement on his face that boiled something angrily in my blood. He turned away in his continued amusement and reached for the flower imprinted china salt shaker and twisted it over his meat with careful movements of his wrist. I laid down my own fork carefully, the chain between my handcuffs clinking against the metal of the plate and stood, the scratch of my chair legs against the floor grated in the silence. The woman tensed at the sound, knots tightening up the curve of her neck and the firelight bronzing the loosened curls that hung there. I stepped around my chair to the window, my footsteps pronounced on the floor and stood by the window, the cold misted through and touched against the tip of my nose. The darkness thickly pressed back against the pane of glass, the barest hint of the men's outline shifting back and forth uncertainly, William indistinguishable amongst them.  
"You ever been to San Francisco?" Pa asked, the clink of the salt shaker set back onto the table and a hint of a smile to his voice.  
"If it's alright by you, Mr. Wade, I'd rather we not talk," the woman said with polite restraint, her words and a chilled fear strained in her voice. I turned back, the coldness now pressed along the side of my cheek, the firelight flickered and goldening and darkening the edges of everything in the room.  
"So you've never been to San Francisco?" Pa gathered, the fork turned between his fingers and the firelight caught along it's rusted edge.  
"No," she admitted quietly, her eyes lowered to her plate and the fire softened over the edges of his face. I ran my fingers over the rim of the windows frame, the roughness of the wood pressed under my nails in splinters.  
"I knew a woman there," Pa continued, the prongs of his fork poked curiously at his potatoes and meat and his eyebrows creased to his forehead. "She was … she was beautiful. Hair like spun gold and eyes … eyes like the underside of a trees bark. The softest sweetest brown. And a voice … a voice that could make Angel's cry. And she used to sing … every night at a little bar by the docks, sing just for me." He paused, the turn of his fork frozen and suspended in its partial movement, a darkness burned to his eyes like burnt gold.  
"What happened to her?" The woman asked quietly, her voice almost audible in the broken air and her lips parted barely on her words. Pa raised his eyes, the firelight creased over his face and whatever darkness burned to them gone with no afterthought or memory.  
"She died," he said simply, turning back to his plate and stirring at the food with a touch of aggressive burned into the movement. "She got sick and she died." The woman glanced over at me, her eyes softened sadly and I bit at the inside of my lip to taste the bitterness of blood, a pressure built and pressed at the back of my throat.  
"Alice?" Rancher asked, the sound of his voice jerked inside my stomach and I lowered my eyes against the sting burned to them. A chair scraped and I raised my eyes as she swept around the edge of the table, her eyes focused forward and her fingers lightly stroked to the wood. She passed by Mark and William and I straightened myself, everything wild and broken inside me like a million stars pressed against the inside of my skin. He stared back at me, his lips parted and the firelight broken to his eyes, the blue to them shattered.  
"Now boys," Pa declared, sliding the potato off the end of his fork and the meat of it crumbling back onto the plate. "I do believe that utensils such as these are overrated." He stabbed the fork into the table where it struck with a low thud, tiny splinters broken up where the prongs impaled through the wood. He slid the plate towards him and dug through it with his fingers, a proud smirk of accomplishment to his lips. I licked the dryness of my lips, the burn of familiar resentment pressed and leeched to the back of my neck.  
"Come finish your supper, sweetie, it's getting cold," he called over his shoulder, his eyes barely glanced to acknowledge me before he turned back to his plate, the shadow of the fork still stabbed to the table trembled over the wood. I glanced over at William, his eyes still frozen to mine and the firelight carved and curled along the edges of his face. I stepped back to my seat and cautiously sat on its edge, my legs wrapped around its feet and drawing it closer to the table with a scrape that sounded unnaturally loud to my ears. The clank of my handcuffs clattered to the wood and I ran my finger over the hardened metal at my wrist, the rust of it burned along the skin of my thumb in burnt red. Pa raised his eyes to Mark and William, his tongue pressed between his lips in a calculated look.  
"Boy?" He asked, his voice loud and sudden, William dropping his eyes from me in an embarrassment that visibly curled up his neck. Pa's hand darted from the plate to the fork still stuck and shoved it inside his sleeve, the sharpened tips of metal glinted from his cuff. He glanced over at me, smirking faintly and pushing the fork deeper into his sleeve.  
"Gotta protect you somehow, love," he said, his voice lowered gruffly and he winked before turning back to his plate, again dug back into its meat.


	6. Chapter 6

Disclaimer: This is the last chapter I have written and so the last chapter I'll be posting for a while. I'm planning on doing a mass edit of all my work then putting them all up again when I have more chapters but for now enjoy!

My footsteps shuffled over the parched earth, the cooled bite of the night air stung under my skin like a thousand needles. The light from the windows of the house dug into the details to either shade or illuminate them, Rose standing uneasily with her reins tightened in Potter's hands. Everything inside me fell in relief and she tossed her head slightly, her hoof beats shifted through the dirt as if she shared my thought.  
"Oh, no, no, no, no," Tucker urged, stepping in front of Pa with his pistol raised dangerously in his hands. "This is my horse now." Pa stared back at him; his eyes flickered over to Velvet and a set of disappointment to his eyes that only skimmed his surface.  
"Come on over here," Tucker directed, leading Pa to another horse, the faded light breaking over their steps across the dirt. Pa glanced over at me and I stepped closer to Rose, pressing my lips to her nose and leaning my forehead between her eyes. Her eyelids fluttered against my hair, stirring it and she nudged her head to mine as if in comfort. The scent and warmth of her pressed to my skin in sweetened reminder and I ran my fingers down her jaw as I pulled away. I walked around Potter and set my foot into the stirrup and swung my leg over, the air frozen through my blood and biting its way numb through my skin. I adjusted myself on the saddle, gripping at the horn and the leather of it stung through my palm and nipping up my arm. Potter held out the reins to me and I grasped them between my hands, the stitching burned icily into my palm. He paused for a moment; the light glinted through the thickened rim of his glasses. He dropped his eyes to his hands and peeled off his gloves, the lightened leather of their insides softened in the shadows.  
"Here," he said, holding them out to me so the fingers feel uselessly over one another. I paused, the strange kindness of the act conflicted inside me and I raised my eyes to Pa, his eyes stared back at me and his arms patiently folded over the stirrup. I turned back to Potter and carefully took the gloves from him, the leather warmed from his skin and roughened under my fingers.  
"Thank you," I said quietly, sliding them onto my hands and the feel expanded and hung over my wrists. He nodded, stepping back to his horse and I gritted my hands inside the leather to hold onto their feel, the reins uncertainly gripped between my fingers. The hairs on the back of my neck curled and rose and I raised my eyes, William bent over the hitching post and his eyes frozen to mine like an icy fire burned in their depths. I dug my fingers deeper into the gloves, the stitching burned under my nails and a sense of sudden darkness and emptiness twisted inside me as it dawned on me that I may never see him again. The feel plummeted deeper and I readjusted my hold on the reins, everything inside me shattering and falling into an emptiness that had no logic or reason behind it. Rancher stepped up beside him, his hat shaded over his eyes and his voice lowered as he spoke quietly to William. William stood violently, determination burned inside him and intensified to hold stiff every minuscule move he made.  
"Let me come with you," he insisted through his teeth, the light burned and lit along the back of his neck and curled into his darkened hair.  
"Well, you can't," Rancher patiently responded, his hands folded over the hitching post and dug along the lines of its shape.  
"I could help," William insisted, his breath clouded in the air and his shoulders violently raised and fallen in a desperation that seemed to bruise along his skin.  
"You're fourteen years old," Rancher politely pointed out, the light burned along his face and goldening the edges of it.  
"Look, I can ride faster and shoot better than any one of them," William continued, glanced back at us and his gaze catching mine, like skin tearing when he looked away. "The Pinkerton's hurt, Potter's no good, that railroad man's dead weight, and that other bastard …" He broke off, Alice speaking too softly for me to hear and he lowered his eyes, something suddenly broken and heavy in his shoulders.  
"I … need to go," he said, his voice almost too low for me to catch and he raised his eyes, a desperation that seemed to tear at the unbearable broken in them. "Please …" Rancher glanced over at me and I turned away, the bite of the air nipped at my cheeks to lacework them pink.  
" … Just a girl," Rancher murmured, his head turned so the brim of his hat clipped in shadow. William shoulders tensed angrily and he looked back at me before pushing himself off the hitching post and marching back into the house, each footstep ached in their sound and what they meant.  
"So, boys, where are we headed?" Pa asked cheerfully, a grin of enjoyment to his lips that creased along his jaw.  
"Ain't none of your business where we're headed, Wade," Tucker roughly pointed out, his breath clouded in wisps in the chilled air. "You're a prisoner. You don't speak, you don't piss, you don't goddamn breathe unless we say so. Same goes for your daughter." He glanced over at me, his teeth bare beneath his lips in malice. "You understand that?" Pa smiled wider in response, biting onto his lip as if he was holding back a laugh to a joke only he understood.  
"We're taking you to Contention," Byron answered, the sound of his horse broken onto the grass and the faded light darkened into the strands of his beard. "Putting you on the 3:10 to Yuma day after tomorrow."  
"Shouldn't have told him that," Tucker said through his teeth, the reins tightened in his hands and the pressure of it lined along Velvet's face.  
"Relax, friend," Pa assured him, his grin twisted to a smirk. "Now if we get separated, I know where to meet up." He turned to me and winked, clicking his tongue to urge his horse forward in uncertain steps.  
"I'd like to thank you for your hospitality, ma'am," he directed to Alice, her face buried to Rancher's shoulder and barely raised at the sound of Pa's voice. "Hope I can send your husband back alright." Rancher pulled from her grasp and glared at Pa, the light broken over his face and traced over it to sharpen it dangerously. I adjusted my hold on the reins, twined between my fingers and clicked my tongue to urge on Rose, my hips jerked somewhat as she fell into careful step. I licked over my lips as the other horses gathered and stepped, their heads lowered with their breaths clouded in the chill. I sank my teeth into the skin and turned back, instinct cut through me and I desperately scanned the house for any detail or sign … William stood at the window, his gaze locked with mine and the light framed behind him in everything dark and beautiful and unattainably raw.  
Rose's flank shifted back and forth beneath me, the muscles bruised along the inside of my thighs. I blinked rapidly, every sense of me faded and muffled with exhaust and cold and adjusted the hold of the reins in my hand. William's face burned through my memory, every detail intensified and raw like a shock that burned through me to boil my blood.  
"You know, Byron," Pa began; his voice casual and light in the chilled air, the faint moonlight caught and carved along the sharpened sketch of the mountains. "My Crew knows every back road; they'll be on that Marshall by dawn."  
"What makes you sure they'll come for you, Wade?" Tucker asked in twisted enjoyment. "And why should they? They got all the money."  
"Oh they'll be coming," Byron assured him, his voice roughened in the cold like a blade that had rusted. "They're lost without him. Like a pack of dogs without a master." The reins fell slack in my hands and I righted myself, the feel of them tightened and entwined between my fingers.  
"Don't be nervous, Doc," Pa politely said, his shape shifted on top of his horse and his stance held high like neither sleep nor cold could touch him. "Just have yourself another drink." Doc Potter responded, his voice a bare warm whisper that I couldn't decipher and I blinked again, every part of me hung heavy. Something crunched distinctly and snapped through me like a shock and I tightened the reins in my fingers, Rose falling to a stop with a slight toss to her head. My heart rate caught painfully in my chest and intensified it' beats, Rancher and Byron dropping from their horses with their rifles cocked, the sounds overly loud and aware to my ears. Their footsteps shuffled through the dirt and Pa lowered from his horse, the handcuffs to his wrists clinking and he stepped over to me.  
"Get down," he murmured, his fingers pressed to my leg in the demand and I swung my leg down from Rose's back, cold seized and broken through my skin as I dropped to the ground.  
"That's my boy," Rancher said, turned back to Byron and his hand fisted over the barrel of his rifle to hold it back. Everything crashed and shattered inside me, pierced and bleeding through my veins and riding my entire being raw.  
"Is that the quiet one or the one who won't shut up?" Pa asked in boredom, his head tilted in only the presumed look of interest. Rancher turned back to glare at him, walking over to the shape of William and his horse, the edges of him trembled in his movement and the splintered moonlight.  
"I left home," he called, his voice sharpened and raw, shattered through the air and pressed to every inch of my skin.  
"Huh?" Rancher yelled after, anger in his voice and the tense moves of his steps. He drew closer and their voices dropped only hums that held firm in the air. I couldn't see his face, the faded light only touched and broken over his shape as a desperate reminder that he still stood there. Rancher turned back, every movement of his stiff and even in the broken light a glint of anger in his eyes. William sat uncertainly on his horse and I stared at him, fragmented shades to him only visible and yet my mind clung to them like cracked glass, bleeding between my fingers and yet refusing to release. Pa clicked his tongue and patted me on the shoulder and I dug my fingers into the cantle of my saddle and swung my leg over the seat and fell into the hardened grooves of it. I clicked my tongue to urge on Rose, my every muscle held in trembled force to keep myself from looking back, the gathered hoof steps of the horses around me overlapped and yet dulled in my thoughts.  
"It's a difficult age between the hay and the grass," Pa said thoughtfully, his hands visibly folded patiently over his lap.  
"He's stubborn," Rancher simply replied the small mention and detail crackled inside me.  
"You can't plant a radish and get an onion, Dan," Pa solemnly remarked, his shoulders set with his own confidence that found its place on the edge of arrogance.  
"Don't talk to me like you know me, Wade. We aren't friends," Rancher bitterly answered, his voice darkened and like the sharpened twist of a blade caught in the moonlight.  
"You know why I'm so hard to walk away, Dan?" Pa asked curiously, continued on like he hadn't heard Rancher's words or didn't care either way. "Why farmers give me shelter and ranches give me food, judges let me off and jailers let me out? You know why? People like me." He finished his words with a grin that seized upon the air like it was claiming it, an inaudible chuckle hummed after.  
"They take pity on you because of your daughter," Rancher replied, his shoulders straightened forward and logic broken between his words.  
"That may be true," Pa thoughtfully admitted, the words played over his lips like they were his own thoughts and not Ranchers. "After all, she is perfect." He turned back to glance at me, a smirk touched along his jaw before straightening forward again, his tongue clicked to urge on his horse. I sank my teeth into my lip, the frozen bite of blood bitter coated along my tongue, burned through my throat and pressed along my skin in a resentment that twisted along me like the rusted flesh of broken metal.  
The fire crackled restlessly, the flames caught and sparked up into the darkness with pops of red and gold faded. I shifted against the rock; the broken edge of it pressed to my back and dug itself under my skin. Pa stared into the flames, the reflection goldening their edges and looking for all the world like he didn't have a care or worry that could break him. He glanced over at Doc Potter, a smirk along his jaw and I followed his gaze, the Doc pressed over his shoulder with a flask to his lips.  
"So," Butterfield began, his voice sudden in the near stillness of the air and his pistol clinking between his fingers. "Were you conscripted into Lincoln's army, Mr. Evans or did you volunteer?"  
"Neither," Rancher said quietly, staring down at something between is gloved fingers, the golden details of it collected in the firelight and he slipped it back into his jacket, his face etched in sudden thought. "Maybe both."  
"What does that mean?" Butterfield asked, his eyes darted between his pistol and back to Dan, the flames flickered orange over his face.  
"Means I was a volunteer …," Rancher began, his back perfectly pressed and shaped against the rock behind him. " … In the Massachusetts State Guard. Then, in '62, the federal government was running low on men, so they called in the state militia's to protect Washington."  
"And that's when you got hurt," Pa gathered, his tongue played behind his parted lips and his forehead creased in thought. I shifted further down against the rock, the crunched grass beneath me broken and the burn of the fire pressed deeper up my legs. He turned back to Rancher, the alternated shadows and light crumbled over his face and neck. "What are you doing out here, Dan? You got a family to protect. You're not a lawman. You don't work for the railroad like Mr. Shiny shoes over there." He tossed his head in Mr. Butterfields direction, his shape burying itself under his jacket and his pistol still tightly gripped in his hand. "You're not a Pinkerton." He stared down at Rancher, his eyes calculated and with a precision like he was applying pressure to see what could make him break and crumble.  
"Maybe I don't like the idea of men like you on the loose," Rancher offered, his head to the rock and a sort of exhaustion that him that was like a roughened second skin.  
"Its men's nature to take what he wants, Dan," Pa smirked, the turn of his face broken in the firelight. "That's how we're born."  
"Well, I make a honest living," Rancher quietly assured, the sound of his voice soft and faded.  
"It might be honest, but I don't think it's much of a living," Pa pointed out, a grin widening and re-carving the firelight along his jaw. "You must be hurting bad for money to take this job."  
"Go to sleep," Rancher tiredly said, his fingers gestured as if through sheer will he could make Pa shut his eyes and close his lips. Pa stared back at him, the edges of his face tinted orange and the tiniest shards of a smirk pressed to the corners of his lips and etched along his face.  
"I imagine debt puts a lot of pressure on a marriage," He observed simply, his gaze fallen to his hands and slowly turning them over in the firelight so their shadow eerily shaped and twisted over the disheveled dirt.  
"You imagine?" Rancher dryly asked, his head raised and the movement cutting the shadow from his hat severely over his face. "What would you know about marriage? We can't all be cutthroats and thieves." His words came out pronounced and heavy, a sharpness burned to them that seemed to spark and crackle in the chilled deadened air.  
"Well, I know if I was lucky enough to have a wife like Alice, I'd treat her a whole lot better than you do Dan," Pa said matter of factly, a faint smile of amusement at the end of his words nearly faded but instead sketched darkly by the flickering flames up his jaw line. "I'd feed her better, buy her pretty dresses, wouldn't make her work so hard …" His voice dropped lower and the flames flickered sharper along his face, a glint of something in his eyes that ran itself bitter and raw. He stared at Rancher for a moment, his eyes tracing over his face as if he were running a knife along his skin and calculating the moment to apply the pressure and watch him bleed. "…Yeah, I'll bet Alice was a real pretty girl before she met you."


End file.
